on the same day.
You can sign up for RHCSA and RHCE training and exams at http://training.redhat.com. Training and exams are given at major cities all over the United States and around the world. The skills you need to complete these exams are described in the following sections.
RHCSA topics
As noted earlier, RHCSA exam topics cover basic system administration skills. These are the current topics listed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 at the RHCSA exam objectives site (again, check the exam objectives site in case they change) and where in this book you can learn about them:
● Understand essential tools– You are expected to have a working knowledge of the command shell (bash), including how to use proper command syntax and do input/output redirection (< > »). You need to know how to log in to remote and local systems. Expect to have to create, edit, move, copy, link, delete, and change permission and ownership on files. Likewise, you should know how to look up information on man pages and /usr/share/doc. Most of these topics are covered in Chapters 3 and 4 in this book. Chapter 5 describes how to edit and find files.
● Operate running systems– In this category, you must understand the Linux boot process, go into single-user mode, shut down, reboot, and change to different targets (previously called runlevels). You need to identify processes and change nice values or kill processes as requested. You must be able to start and stop virtual machines and network services, as well as find and interpret log files. Chapter 15 describes how to change targets and runlevels and manage system services. See Chapter 6 for information on managing and changing processes. Chapter 26 describes how to manage virtual machines. Logging is described in Chapter 13.
● Configure local storage– Setting up disk partitions includes creating physical volumes and configuring them to be used for Logical Volume Management (LVM) or encryption (LUKS). You should also be able to set up those partitions as filesystems or swap space that can be mounted or enabled at boot time. Disk partitioning and LVM are covered in Chapter 12. LUKS and other encryption topics are described in Chapter 23.
● Create and configure filesystems– Create and automatically mount different kinds of filesystems, including regular Linux filesystems (ext2, ext3, or ext4), LUKS-encrypted filesystems, and network filesystems (NFS and CIFS). Create collaborative directories using the set group ID bit feature and Access Control Lists (ACL). You must also be able to use LVM to extend the size of a logical volume. Filesystem topics are covered in Chapter 12. See Chapter 19 for CIFS and Chapter 20 for NFS coverage.
● Deploy, configure, and maintain systems– This covers a range of topics, including configuring networking, creating cron tasks, setting the default runlevel, and installing RHEL systems. You must also be able to configure a simple HTTP and FTP server. For software packages, you must be able to install packages from Red Hat Network, a remote repository, or the local filesystem. Finally, you must be able to properly install a new kernel and choose that or some other kernel to boot up when the system starts. The cron facility is described in Chapter 13. Web server (HTTP) and FTP server setups are covered in Chapters 17 and 18, respectively.
● Manage users and groups– You must know how to add, delete, and change user and group accounts. Another topic you should know is password aging, using the chage command. You must also know how to configure a system to authenticate by connecting to an LDAP directory server. See Chapter 11 for information on configuring users and groups.
● Manage security– You must have a basic understanding of how to set up a firewall (firewalld, system-config-firewall or iptables) and how to use SELinux. You must be able to set up SSH to do key-based authentication. Learn about SELinux in Chapter 24. Firewalls are covered in Chapter 25. Chapter 13 includes a description of key-based authentication.
Most of these topics are covered in this book. Refer to Red Hat documentation (https://access.redhat.com/documentation/) under the Red Hat Enterprise Linux heading for descriptions of features not found in this book. In particular, the System Administrator's Guide contains descriptions of many of the RHCSA-related topics.
RHCE topics
RHCE exam topics cover more advanced server configuration, along with a variety of security features for securing those servers in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Again, check the RHCE exam objectives site for the most up-to-date information on topics you should study for the exam.
System configuration and management
The system configuration and management requirement for the RHCE exam covers a range of topics, including the following:
● Bonding– Set up bonding to aggregate network links. Bonding is described in Chapter 14.
● Route IP traffic– Set up static routes to specific network addresses. Chapter 14 includes a description of how to set up custom routes.
● Firewalls– Block or allow traffic to selected ports on your system that offer services such as web, FTP, and NFS, as well as block or allow access to services based on the originator's IP address. Firewalls are covered in Chapter 25.
● Kernel tunables– Set kernel tunable parameters using the /etc/sysctl.conf file and the sysctl command. See Chapter 14 for a description of how to use the /etc/sysctl.conf file to change IP forwarding settings in /proc/sys.
● Kerberos authentication– Use Kerberos to authenticate users on a RHEL system. Chapter 11 includes a description of setting up a system to authentication to a Kerberos server.
● Configure iSCSI– Set up system as an iSCSI target and initiator that mounts an iSCSI target at boot time. See the Red Hat Storage Administration Guide for further information (https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/ch-iscsi.html)
● System reports– Use features such as sar to report
